Scientists Link Selfies To Narcissism, Addiction & Mental Illness

Selfies are so popular, the word selfie was created and anybody who has cell phone have most likely taken one of these pictures.

“Cognitive behavioral therapy is used to help a patient to recognize the reasons behind his/her compulsive behavior and then learn how to moderate it,” he told the Sunday Mirror. A British, teenage boy tried to commit suicide after failed attempts to take the “perfect” selfie. Danny Bowman was obsessed with capturing a perfect picture, that he would spend up to 10 hours a day taking around 200 selfies. The 19-year old has shed 30 pounds, dropped out from school, and never left his house for 6 months in the obsessive quest in taking the perfect selfie.

He would take 10 pictures right in the morning when waking up. When he became so frustrated with trying to take the right selfie, Bowman tried to commit suicide by overdosing, but had been saved by his mother.“I was constantly in search of taking the perfect selfie and when I realized I couldn’t, I wanted to die. I lost my friends, my education, my health and almost my life,” he told The Mirror. Danny Bowman is considered the first in the UK to have a selfie addiction. He has undergone therapy to treat his technology addiction, OCD and Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Some of the treatment at the Maudsley Hospital in London has involved separating him from his iPhone in 10 minute periods of time, then went up to 30 minutes and soon to an hour. “It was excruciating to begin with but I knew I had to do it if I wanted to go on living,” he told the Sunday Mirror. Public health officials in the UK announced that addiction to social media such as Facebook and Twitter is an illness and more than 100 patients sought treatment every year.

“Selfies trigger perceptions of self-indulgence or attention-seeking social dependence that raises the damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t spectre of either narcissism or very low self-esteem,” said Pamela Rutledge in Psychology Today. The big problem with the rise of digital narcissism is that it puts enormous pressure on people to achieve hard to reach goals, without making them hungrier. Wanting to be Beyoncé, Jay Z or a supermodel is hard enough, but when you are not prepared to work hard to achieve it, you are better off just lowering your aspirations.

Few things are more self-destructive than a combination of high entitlement and a lazy work ethic. Ultimately, online manifestations of narcissism may be little more than a self-presentational strategy to make up for a low, fragile self-esteem. Yet when these efforts are reinforced and rewarded by others, they perpetuate a distortion of reality and add more narcissistic delusions.

Selfie addictions have alarmed Thai health professionals.“To pay close attention to published photos, controlling who sees or who likes or comments them, hoping to reach the greatest number of likes is a symptom that ‘selfies’ are causing problems,” said Panpimol Wipulakorn, of the Thai Mental Health Department.

Dr. Wipulakorn believed these behaviors could create problems in the brain later on, especially with those who lack confidence in themselves. The word “selfie” was labeled “Word of the Year 2013” by the Oxford English Dictionary. It is defined as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website”.

Popular selfies

1. THE GYM SELFIE (BECAUSE THE CHECKIN ISN’T ENOUGH.)

2. THE PET SELFIE (IF YOU WANT TO POST A PICTURE OF YOUR PET, POST A PICTURE OF YOUR PET.)

Unless this occurs, it’s completely fine:

3. THE CAR SELFIE AKA THE SEATBELT SELFIE (YOU LITERALLY GOT IN THE CAR AND THOUGHT, “I LOOK SO GOOD TODAY, I BETTER LET EVERYONE KNOW BEFORE I PUT THIS THING IN DRIVE AND HEAD TO MY SHIFT AT THE OLIVE GARDEN.”)

IF YOU CAN COMBINE THE SEATBELT SELFIE WITH THE BELOVED SHIRTLESS SELFIE LIKE THIS UNATTRACTIVE FELLA BELOW, YOU..ARE…GOLD.

4. THE BLURRY SELFIE (WHY?)

5. THE JUST WOKE UP SELFIE

Yeah, ok, you just woke up.

6. OR EVEN WORSE, THE PRETENDING TO BE ASLEEP SELFIE. (WE KNOW YOU’RE NOT ASLEEP, ASSHOLE. YOU TOOK THE DAMN PICTURE.)

7. THE ADD A KID SELFIE (EXTRA POINTS FOR A C-SECTION SCAR.)

8. THE HOSPITAL SELFIE (A RARE GEM. THE MORE TUBES YOU HAVE HOOKED UP TO YOU, THE BETTER.)

9. THE “I’M ON DRUGS” SELFIE (THIS LOOKER BELOW ALSO QUALIFIES AS THELOOK AT MY NEW HAIRCUT SELFIE.)

10. THE DUCK FACE SELFIE (HEY GIRLS. THIS DOESN’T MAKE YOU PRETTIER. IT MAKES YOU LOOK STUPID AND DESPERATE. IF THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE GOING FOR, CARRY ON.)

11. THE PREGNANT BELLY SELFIE (SEND THIS TO YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS, NOT THE ENTIRE INTERNET.)

And yes, this is a pregnant bellied-duck face selfie. It’s the top of the “Awful Selfies” list.

12. THE “I’M A GIGANTIC WHORE” SELFIE

Nice phone case you have there? Looks like you got it from your sugar daddy, by the way.

13. THE “I HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO FLY ON AN AIRPLANE” SELFIE (AND I OWN EARBUDS.)

14. THE 3D SELFIE. (IT TAKES TALENT…ALONG WITH CLASS.)

15. THE SAY SOMETHING THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING SELFIE(YOU HAD A GREAT NIGHT? OH.)

If you enjoyed this article or learned something new, please don't forget to share it with others so they have a chance to enjoy this free information. This article is open source and free to reblog or use if you give a direct link back to the original article URL. Thanks for taking the time to support an open source initiative. We believe all information should be free and available to everyone. Have a good day and we hope to see you soon!